Текст книги "King of flesh and bone"

Автор книги: Liv Zander

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Chapter 20

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Ada

I snapped for air, pulling the autumn chill down my throat and into my dread-filled chest. What was I supposed to do now? The horse was gone. What remained were several dozen corpses who stared at me none the wiser.

As long as they kept standing, though, they hadn’t overwhelmed Enosh. Still, I couldn’t just sit here and wait for him. Soldiers might come for my head next. Devil be damned, where was I?

A loud rumble answered, along with the salt of the sea that seasoned my tongue each time I groaned in pain. I forced myself onto shaky legs, taking a quick assessment of my state. My cheek burned something awful. Cuts painted one of my arms crimson while the other hung limp and somewhat displaced from my battered shoulder. Dislocated.

I walked toward the deafening boom until my feet met the edge of the cliff. Below, violent waves threw themselves against ungiving rock. Seagulls drifted over the water where something bobbed on the surface…

A man.

A corpse, to be precise. Everyone knew a merchant ship had succumbed to a storm a winter ago, clashing with the rock before the current ripped the sailors asunder. Trapped them there to wiggle on each full moon.

Enosh must have called them to his aid.

My heart clenched and my legs threatened to snap underneath me. Calm. I had to stay calm and think. Panic would get me nowhere but onto a pyre, and Enosh couldn’t die.

But he could suffer.

No, I couldn’t think of that now.

Breathe. Breathe!

I knew where I was.

We called this place Beggar’s Bay, and that name lifted some of the pain. Hemdale wasn’t far from here, easily found if I followed along the cliffs before I cut inland toward the east. Ugh, the pain returned twofold. Hemdale was no safer than any other place out here, perhaps less so. Shouldn’t I return to the Pale Court? But how?

The Blighted Fields lay… what? Half a day’s ride away? Walking there would take me three full ones. I lifted the heavy bone train of my dress and cringed at the blooming bruises.

Make that four days.

I glanced over the quiet fields from which I’d escaped, spotting neither my husband nor a soldier. Still, who could tell what I would run into if I went back there? Enosh had sent me away for a reason.

Bile soured my tongue.

I was just as hunted.

Between the threat of running into soldiers—likelier having my throat cut by vagabonds before even setting eyes on the Pale Court—and a few hours to potential safety with Pa, the choice was simple.

After a quick glimpse at where the sun reflected from behind dreary clouds to make certain I would follow the cliff in the right direction, I looked down at my dress. Aside from the fact that bonemail would earn me suspicion, it was too damn heavy. Beneath it, the lined leather dress remained intact.

I ripped one of the splintered bone scales away from the sleeve, then cut through the strings of leather that held the rows of chips in place so I might slip out of it.

Turning toward the corpses, I gave a few shooing waves at them. “Go away. Or… I don’t know. If you follow, just don’t make it so obvious.”

They followed.

And groaned…

Devil be damned, they stomped behind me for a while as I headed north with a slight limp in every other step. Toward home… or away from it?

My throat narrowed.

It didn’t matter.

What good was keeping a promise if I died trying to fulfill it? A mule and provisions. A waxed, hooded cloak. A scarf to hide my face for good measure. That was all I needed to prepare for my journey to the Pale Court. Maybe three days of rest for my shoulder—

Thud. Thud.

Thud, thud, thud.

I turned back.

Panic surged, freezing my legs in place as I stared over the motionless corpses littering the ground.

They’d captured Enosh.

Crouching behind barrels, I waited in the shroud of darkness, listening to the once familiar bellow of Hemdale’s night guard as he called the hour and lit the few oil lamps. His voice faded into the thick fog lingering between the buildings, making room for the rapid ba-boom of my heart.

Three.

Two.

Now!

I slinked around the barrels and hurried steps carried me up the cobblestone. It changed into seashells crunching beneath my thinning soles as I snuck around my home and hushed into the shrubs beneath the window.

Snores came from behind the shutters. I pushed a twig through the gap and disabled the lock behind them. Hinges creaked when I opened the shutters, and I reached up in search of hold on the window’s frame. Since my arm still hung limp and numb, it took several attempts to reach the sill. Once I did, I wiggled myself inside, ribs grinding along hard wood before my hip caught on it. I hit the wooden planks a breath later. Pain flared to life across my body once more, putting the ache around the blisters on my feet to shame.

Still, the snoring continued, and I patted the table down for a candle. Red embers guided me toward the hearth, where I lit the wick, letting a flame cast nervous flickers about the room. My handloom took up a large part of it, and I carefully worked around it toward Pa’s bed.

My nose caught a whiff of musty straw, so foreign after two months of the softest pelts keeping me warm. Something inside me revolted. Everything smelled wrong; the air I breathed so void of the familiarity of ash sprinkled over snow, it sunk my heart. Would they burn Enosh at the stake?

My head shook on its own.

There was no point pondering it.

In the end, Enosh would be alive.

Though I might not end so lucky.

I kneeled beside Pa’s bed, palm suspended above his mouth in case he screamed. “Pa.” When he smacked his wrinkled lips but otherwise didn’t rouse, I tried again. “Pa. Wake up. It’s me… Ada.”

He shot up with a groan, clutching his patched-up quilt. I hadn’t needed to worry about him screaming. He pressed the quilt to his mouth, letting the wool muffle a violent cough that shook the tousled white strands at the top of his head. With it came the scent of blood, like a rusty nail warmed between one’s fingers.

I brought the candle closer, letting the dim light cast across the many dark red spots that dappled the linen atop the straw. My stomach hardened.

It had gotten worse.

So much worse.

“Ada…”

Pa’s voice, muffled beneath layers of bloody phlegm, brought my eyes to his. “We have to be quiet or the night guard will find me.”

“Oh, child…” His blood-stained lips trembled, his eyes glassy. “Where have you been? What happened to your face? For days, we sent riders to search for the mule, but they never… never found you, and…” When his eyes narrowed on my neck, I suddenly remembered that I still wore my collar. “What in the name of Helfa is that?”

“Shh, I’ll tell you everything.” Even if I didn’t know how. “First, I’ll heat some water, then get a rag and strong alcohol for my wounds. But…” I peeled my shredded dress away from my badly bruised shoulder, “I’ll need your help with this. You have to push it back, like I saw you do once with William.”

His lips pressed into a thin line as he struggled age-stiffened bones from the bed. “Your cheek needs stitching, and even then, it’ll leave an ugly scar. Where have you been, Ada? Why have you not sent word? So stricken was I with grief and guilt, but the mule, it… There was nothing I could do to hold him.”

I shook my head, not knowing where even to begin. “No, Pa, there was nothing you could’ve done. But listen, I can’t stay in Hemdale. Stitch me up as good as you can, and I’ll try to explain while you do.”

The silence grew pregnant while I heated water in the kettle by the hearth, stacked the fire, gathered needle and yarn. How could I possibly explain all that had happened if I could barely straighten my thoughts or overcome this hollowness swelling beneath my ribs?

Keeping my voice low lest the night guard might grow suspicious, I told Pa everything. Well, almost everything, leaving out the parts that would make any god-fearing man draw the sign of Helfa to his ashen forehead.

“We married in a little temple,” I eventually concluded.

At that, Pa’s bushy white brows knitted. “And have you been this… creature’s wife in every sense of the word?”

Cheeks sucked between my molars, I nodded. “Not a creature, Pa. A god. And… I gave my vow.”

“And before this terrible god coaxed this vow from you, for we all know of his cruelties…” There was a heavy pause as he held the needle into the fire, sending a shudder across my back. “Has he touched you? Has he… forced himself on you?”

I flinched twice.

Once at his question, the second time when the hook needle poked my skin, thread squeaking through the flesh around a weeping cut on my cheek.

Between the drafty gaps in the daub and the old straw in the mattress of my simple home here in Hemdale, the answer would have been yes. But nothing was simple about Enosh or how I’d gone from captive to wife to… to lover? Where had my obedience ended? Where had my cravings begun? What if I’d welcomed the desire in his touch, his attentions, using his power as a convenient way to wash my hands of sin and call it insanity?

Pa stroked my hair back. He must have read the confusion on my face, and that shamed me deeply.

I forced a smile. “Enosh said he would open his gates and rot the dead the day I loved him.”

“Sounds to me like something the devil would say. And a pact with him is what you got yourself into.”

My stomach clenched. “King. God. Devil. He brought rot to the girl Anna, and he agreed to do the same for all the children in these lands. Does that account for nothing?”

“My child, I simply don’t know what to make of this.” Pa sighed as he cut the thread with a sharp blade. He wiped a cold, wet cloth over the wound before the room filled with the balmy traces of marigold salve, which he dabbed onto my cheek. “John was bad enough. Oh, I never forgave myself for agreeing to his bride’s price. Can a father be concerned for his—” A cough cut through his words, leaving a speck of blood on the corner of his mouth. “I worry about you.”

“I know.” But I worried about him more, and how his chest now vibrated with a constant rattle, as though blood collected in his lungs. “This morning, Enosh took me with him to stand by his promise. Soldiers attacked us. Maybe the corpses he raised put them on our tail. Maybe they’d watched the Æfen Gate all along. Who can say?”

“Ever since people reported his sighting, High Priest Dekalon issued all villages and towns to supply a militia for his capture for he would surely emerge again.”

Something I’d warned Enosh about, but neither the god nor I had expected such force. “They used fire as though they knew what his weakness was, just like in that book someone told me about. I’d bet a silver coin that the Hight Priest knows exactly what Enosh is.”

“Yes, a god, you say.” Doubt carved itself into the wrinkles around his scrunched nose. “Has he spread rot? Have you seen the children rot in the ground, whatever that might look like?”

An itch started underneath my skin, growing more uncomfortable with each second I said nothing. “Well… we were attacked. He had no opportunity to do so.”

“So headstrong, not even the devil could master it.” He scoffed, but the sound held more accusation than amusement. “A man who broke your legs, collared you, had corpses keep you a prisoner, and did who knows what else to you… yet he has done nothing to lift this curse from what I can tell, aside from rotting one strange girl.”

“Twisted. He didn’t break them, but—” Damn it to hell, I should have kept my mouth shut or came up with a lie. Of course, all this made me look like a woman out of her wits. “I trust his word.”

Pa frowned. “The devil is the father of all lies.”

I rose and paced the creaky floorboards, not liking how this itch refused to ease. “Enosh is many things, but he’s no liar.”

He’d vowed no mortal shall find rest at the Pale Court, and none did. He’d promised to make every one of my orifices his to play with, and he had. He’d threatened his cock up my arse if I wasn’t agreeable, and he’d done that, too.

All perfect examples of his truthfulness, but even without saying them out loud, I sounded like a madwoman, even to myself. As much as those things proved his sincerity, all it did was make him an honest devil—one who likely burned at the stake at this very moment.

I let myself slump to the ground before the hearth and buried my muddled head underneath the tangle of my arms. Nearly two months with Enosh and what had I achieved? Very little.

That dark void in my core expanded, sucking all my remaining strength into its black nothingness until my chin hit my chest. All I’d accomplished was getting him captured. And for what? To rot the remains of my deadbeat, late husband? He could go right ahead and walk off the fucking cliff for all I cared.

Curse this mess to hell and back. I’d made everything worse. Days, months, years… eventually, Enosh would free himself. And once he did? Oh, my husband would listen to no talk of rot, and instead, he’d come straight for High Priest Dekalon. And if something happened to me out here…?

I shuddered at the premise of the looming destruction, forcing my head up to meet Pa’s eyes. “I have to get back to the Pale Court.”

“I don’t think you should return to this man, whatever he might be,” Pa said, his voice stern, but he eventually nodded. “But yes, you’re not safe here. Talk about a woman who rode with him is spreading from village to village. Little did I know it was my own daughter. Stand up.”

“I made a vow before God.”

“A vow before a god you say is not real, so I can only wonder about its value.” He gave me a come-hither motion. “Stand.”

When I did, Pa grabbed my arm with one hand. With the other, he cupped my shoulder until, with a rapid push, it cracked and slipped back into its joint.

I hissed a dozen curses into the sleeve of my dress. “I need a mule. Better even, a horse.”

“Weak and battered as you are, you’ll fall right off at the first breeze catching on your hair. What you need is rest. A month to rest your shou– Haugh!” Another savage cough sliced through his words, speckling the fist pressed to his mouth with blood that ran along his wrist before it dripped onto the wood. He cleared his throat, wiped his hand on his gown, and tapped my collar. “This needs to come… come off, lest you want your head severed by some cutthroat to get to the stone. Some nippers should get through the bone.”

I nodded, eyes going to the red stains on his white gown. Even I understood that one misstep of a hoof might cause such pain in my shoulder, it might throw me off the horse, never-mind the pounding beat hammering the joint at a canter. Yes, I needed rest. Gathering all provisions would take time.

Time I would use to convince Pa to come with me.

“He could heal whatever is wrong with your lungs, you know.” I grabbed the wet rag from the kettle and washed the blood off his age-wrinkled fingers. “Come to the Pale Court with me, and Enosh can make it right again. I know he will do it for me.”

He stroked my tousled tresses back but shook his head. “I look forward to reuniting with your mother.”

Who was stubborn now? “You’ll wander.”

“Yes, your husband made certain of that.”

My head turned on instinct, unable to face whatever objection I might find on his face. “I’ll need ashes and walnut shells to darken my hair. We cannot use our names wherever we go, and nobody can know that we came from Hemdale or anywhere near it.”

“There’s a quaint fishing village upstream,” Pa said, already reaching for his travel sack. “News is slow to reach there. Two days’ travel. A month of rest for your shoulder.”

“I can’t afford a month.” If Enosh escaped and found the Pale Court empty… “We’ll go to that village to rest and prepare. If we bring your cages along, we can sell fish for coin and can afford a mule. Then we’ll head to the Blighted Fields, but we’ll take the long way around.”

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Chapter 21

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Enosh

There was that smell again—acrid, the mist of mortality wafting around it moist in my nose. My flesh sizzled. Blisters popped against the lick of flames underneath me. Its stench was second only to the sulfurous odor of my burnt hair. Still, I found reprieve in the fact that the dry, bitter reek of ash remained absent.

For now.

Because they’d weaved my broken bones through the spokes of a wooden wheel, allowing my skin and flesh to mend when I was at its highest point.

Ah, torture had come a long way.

Wood groaned.

I dove toward the fire.

Every muscle in my body strung tight until the iron chains around my wrists and ankles clanked. Violent trembles seized my body and a guttural groan lodged from my throat unbidden. Tshhh went my lashes as they singed away for the hundredth time to the bellow huffing air into the flames.

Pain… so much pain.

But I could not linger on it when I emerged from the flames, eager to leave this rotten place and return to my wife. Memories of our coupling in the forest spread through me, weaving a sanctum for my crippling mind, no matter how frail. My little one had wholly given herself to me, to us, to this inkling of sincere affection between us that went beyond lust and loneliness. Had that not been so?

Matters of the heart confounded me, but not that of flesh and bone. And my wife’s had been pliable beneath me, not a single muscle offering resistance. I needed to return to her. Oh, she had to be so scared, shaken, terrified.

I forced my mind through the fog of agony and anguish, letting it roam over the dead scattered across the lands, commanding them to aid me.

Master. Master.

The dead called out to me forevermore, eager to do my bidding. I let them dig from their graves, rise from where they’d last collapsed, and march—

Fire engulfed me…

…and didn’t stop.

“I need a break,” the man beside me said through the roar of flames. “Turn him slowly in the flames and faster at the top, or he’ll use his black magic.”

Eager flames devoured me, opening my eyes to it all as it burned my eyelids away. Gray flakes soon drifted up and away until my vision first blurred, then speckled, until it finally darkened. My lungs smoldered from the heat; seared even more from how I wanted to scream but wouldn’t allow such humiliation. Pain carried me within the reaches of death… but no further.

Wood moaned.

Iron fittings creaked.

Flames retreated.

My skin itched where it mended as I came up again, more violently around the charred flesh of my lips from which I drooled. For days I’d prepared my escape, but gathering bone proved tedious. Hardly did I bring it to the surface from the outreaches of my prison, did approaching flames cut my efforts short. Oh yes, Lord Tarnem had made certain of that.

Footsteps!

A set of two.

“We sent doves to all towns, villages, and hamlets, asking—” Flames crackled through the approaching voice, and sores hissed in their heat. “Witnesses have come forward, confirming the rumors, Your Highness. A piece of writing was found at a—” Crackle. Hiss. Pop. Pop. “…in the forest, but we continue our search for the woman.”

Liquid rage poured into my veins. They would never take my wife from me, that I had ensured. No matter how many arrows had punctured my organs, knives had severed my tendons, or axes had chopped through my bones… I’d fought them long after the horse had reached the Pale Court.

Until they’d poured oil over me and set me ablaze, to be precise.

“Halt the wheel!”

Halt, it did.

The heat licked away at my feet, but at least my vision returned, faster once I was able to blink again. A man walked up before me, dressed in white robes heavily embroidered with golden suns. He pressed a hand to his mouth to mask the stench, and pearls of sweat formed on his bald head as he leaned toward me, scrutinizing me from all angles.

“Two hundred years, but you bastard had to emerge during my tenure.” A snarl flitted across his hard-cut features, his robes filthed with the signs of a false god. “I am High Priest Dekalon.”

Of course he was. “Save your introductions for Lord Tarnem and Commander Mertok, mortal.”

“Your Highness.” The armored man beside him lowered his head enough the cast of flames glistened along the puckered scar that cut across the malformed bridge of his nose. “Fire indeed proves the only thing keeping him from shaking the ground and raising the dead. Soldiers are weighting down graves across the land at double the measure, but there are too many and the pits are full. We need to turn him.”

Dekalon gave a dismissive swat at the air as he watched me rise on the wheel. “I had hoped Helfa would spare me your sudden appearance. But then again, so has every high priest before me. A fine dungeon, is it not? My predecessors…” his voice faded into the roar of flames, only to filter back in one turn later, “…built into the mountainside on the hardest rock, not a single grave over the span of many furlongs.”

Which explained the scarce amount of bone at my disposal, gathered from insects, rats, and whatever other creatures had found their end between these stony walls. Escape would come neither soon nor easy, but none of that mattered as long as my wife waited safely at home.

My heart clenched.

I’d failed her so thoroughly. Had lost all control, so overwhelmed was I with ardor, corpses had dug from the ground by the dozens. An appreciated accident, given how mortals had attacked us moments later, putting my little one in grave danger. But she was safe now. The man’s words confirmed as much, eliminating all doubt.

After another excruciating turn, Dekalon reached out his hand, palm up. “Your blade.”

My throat narrowed.

The mortal beside handed over his knife.

A knife Dekalon brought to my shaky fingers. Carved handle sitting in the clasp of his hand, he rested the glinting blade against my blistering thumb. He pushed down, severing through red skin, flesh, and muscle. When the blade embedded itself in my bone, he brought his other hand to the handle for leverage.

Crk.

My bone gave, and my thumb dropped onto the filthy stone beneath us, only to roll into the flames with a wet hiss.

His eyes flicked between the disappearing digit in the fire and how it slowly reshaped around the bleeding stump of my knuckle. “I am… fascinated.”

And I was starting to get angry. “Ah, yes, such is the simplicity of your mortal mind. Eternity in my service shall broaden it.”

His green eyes narrowed. “You are quite arrogant for an immortal chained in a dungeon, stinking up its walls.”

What could he do that had not been done before? “And you are quite bold for a dying man who will soon relinquish his bones to my keep. Mmm, what a fine adornment that polished head of yours will bring to my throne.”

He lifted the blade to my face, taking his time as he carved a slash across my cheek. “Does this not pain you? It ought to… if old scriptures are to be believed.”

As if I would confess such a thing to a mere mortal. “Pain and I are old acquaintances.”

I held his poisonous stare, gathering bone from wherever my tired mind reached. It crushed into the finest powder, drifting on the wind along dark corridors. It passed torches, armed guards, hushed over the filthy stone, down several steps, up others, and through the gaps of the oaken door locking me here.

“All the scrolls, books, and stories kept at the High Temple… no simple tale after all. For two hundred years, the high priests of the realm have prepared to capture you, should you ever emerge.” A smug grin tugged the corners of his mouth. “Still, even charred and pitiful as you are at this moment, I am… humbled to stand in your presence.”

“Oh, I shall teach you true humble—”

“Turn him!” Dekalon leaned into me, his voice dripping with venom. “Turn him twice.”

Fire engulfed me.

Agony scraped over my mind one degree at a time until I returned from the flames with a growl. “Oh, you foolish mortal. I shall—”

“Keep turning him!”

Blazing, burning, biting flames peeled away barely mended skin, chewing down to flesh still raw and sore. Spin after spin, the torment continued, and death passed me with each one. The air bittered further until, with a nauseating whiff, the mind-numbing stench of ash infiltrated the disfigured leftovers of my nose.

My mind shriveled, collapsing into madness as I gagged and choked on the stench of my charred flesh. I dug my teeth into my tongue until blood seasoned my gums and the organ severed between my clenching bite.

Oh, I would kill him.

I would kill them all!

Many turns later, when my taste of smell had long abandoned me, along with my vision, the wheel stalled once more. Slow footsteps tapped here and there, followed by the high priest’s voice.

“By Helfa, he bit off his tongue. Say something, King of Flesh and Bone. Threaten me while the blood slobbers from the gaps between your teeth.” A chuckle. “Oh… you no longer have much of a tongue for threats. You cannot fathom my hatred for you and the chaos you left in this world after you abandoned us.” His blurred outline appeared in front of me. “People had nobody to pray to; nothing to hope for but endless wandering. Only with the help of Helfa were the temples able to save us from falling into a darkest age.”

I strained my neck, lifting my new eyes to his as I tried curling my reshaped tongue. “Your gosh’a lie.”

His imperious laugh fanned the rage in my blood. “True enough for the people since it got you captured, as the high priests had hoped we would someday. They built a prison strong enough to keep you contained until we burned the last tree, the last dried piece of pig shit.” Lifting the hem of his robes, he squatted before me. “This world only has room for one god.”

“Agreed.”

He scoffed. “You think yourself so superior, yet you’ve failed to escape the soldier’s ambush.”

To save my wife.

I could have overwhelmed them, but not without putting her at risk of getting injured or worse. Pain, torture, cuts… I would suffer a million flames to ensure her safety—I had vowed as much. Ada had vowed to return to my side should we get separated, offering me a source of strength. I would escape this.

Dekalon scrunched up his nose. “An immortal charred black.”

“A temporary predicament,” I said, letting powdered bone rise and settle between the stones where the mortar had crumbled. “Unlike your punishment. That will be eternal. Let your mind think of my words, mortal. I shall offer up corpses to have your soul bound once the time comes.”

His brow lifted. “You speak in riddles.”

“I leave the riddles to my brother.”

Now his brows knitted in all their mortal ignorance, his mind so unassuming about things far greater than he could possibly comprehend. Oh, how blessed my brothers were in being ignored by mortals, for I was the physical embodiment and its ability to suffer pain.

“Your Highness,” the armed mortal beside us urged, gesturing the man with the bellow to feed the flames higher once more, sending plumes of smoke to the arched ceiling. “The fire. We need to turn him.”

“Ah, yes, turn me.”

Up I went, the itch along my skin unbearable, my scalp tingling where my hair grew back. Then I went down, diving into the sweltering heat of the biting flames. The moment I emerged, I focused on the remnants of the dead. Powdered bone, painstakingly brought here over the course of excruciating days, shaped into a first spike—

“Enosh.”

At the sound of my true name, the spike settled in the crack between rock, and dust rilled onto the stone floor. My pulse quickened. What an unexpected surprise.

“It is your name, is it not?” A smirk tugged on Dekalon’s mouth. “The priest who wed you wrote it in the book of bindings, along with your identity. Your wife is beautiful, from what I heard. Adelaide, correct?”

Book of bindings.

My molars ground together until they ached. “Mortals and their damned customs.”

“Wherever might your wife be, Enosh?” When I said nothing, he sighed. “I had a wife once, many years before I stepped onto Helfa’s path. Hilde. No woman in the village made better pie than her. The secret’s in the browned butter, she used to say. She died during childbirth… on a full moon.” He smacked his lips and slowly shook his head. “Seeing her go pale and lifeless was terrible to witness. Worse was how she then got up and scratched at the door, pacing bowlegged with my child stuck between her legs. I daresay heartbreak such as this ought to drive a man insane. Leave him in the fire for a bit.”

Panic stitched through my chest.

Flames wrapped me in agony until my screams died away in my throat. They devoured all thought, all nerves, all senses, reducing my existence to nothing but pain that no immortal should survive. I needed this to stop. I needed to get back to my wife.

When the fire finally retreated, I couldn’t feel my body anymore, couldn’t think past the fury clouding my mind and this all-consuming need for my wife. Wicked, wayward mortals.

A ringing started in my ears or whatever was left of them, which soon took on the sound of words. “—wife might have escaped to the um… what did the scriptures call it? The Pale Court? With its master gone, perhaps we may finally enter. Maybe she’ll even do us the favor and come out at some point.”

No, Ada was no fool. She would stay inside the safety of our home. But what then, once food became scarce and her only servant rotted away while my wife succumbed to age? A strange sensation came over my heart, like an odd beat of caution that didn’t quite fit its usual cadence.

Out. I needed out of here.

“Oh, how your eyes widened for a moment, even as they rolled in their sockets.” Dekalon leaned over, letting his whisper drill into my mind. “Several soldiers reported having seen you… consummate this union. As we both agreed, this world has no room for two gods, especially not one who breeds. Cut it off!”

Cold dread soaked into my muscles, chilling me to the bone until I was ready to beg for the bellow to hike the flames. Stabbing pain shot into my groin, ripping a scream from me that got stuck halfway up my throat, along with my breath. My back bowed and arched as they cut my manhood away. I trembled with such violence, the entire wheel shook.